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Ridgeway clock does not chime

Hello all. I recently inheriteid a ridgeway grandfather clock. To make a very long story short the clock was moved improperly by truck around 100 miles with weights and pendulem still attached ( I know some are pulling their hair out already but it was not me who moved it). Anyway the clock sat in storge for some time untill I aquired it. The clock had not run for probaly 8 years until I recieved it. I decided to try to get it working for the heck of it after calling a clock shop and them wanting $200 just to come and look at it. ( I am on a tight budget) The weights were all laying on the bottom of the case and the pendulum had come off. I reattached everything according to the directions that were surprising left in the case. Anyway the clock has been working great for about a week and is still going great. It has kept great time with very little adjustment needed to the pendulem. This clock has three differant chime settings on it and should chime on the quater hour and play a tune on the hour from my understanding but it does not. What are common problems assuming nothing is severly damaged? I ordered some oil and plan to oil the clock. I also got some books from my local library regaurding repairing grandfather clocks. I have always been a careful do it yourselfer and find it fun and interesting taking on such a project. What would you suggest I look at first? What are the most obvious problems? Are they generally simple or very complex? Also the internal workings show no sign of rust or dust build up and nothing seems to be bent or damged despite its rather scary moving. Some minor dings on the inside of the case but other then that it looks very good wit a little lemon oil and windex on the glass. If anyone has any ideas it would be very helpful. Also the weights have been double checked to be in the proper order.

Hello all. I recently inheriteid a ridgeway grandfather clock. To make a very long story short the clock was moved improperly by truck around 100 miles with weights and pendulem still attached ( I know some are pulling their hair out already but it was not me who moved it). Anyway the clock sat in storge for some time untill I aquired it. The clock had not run for probaly 8 years until I recieved it. I decided to try to get it working for the heck of it after calling a clock shop and them wanting $200 just to come and look at it. ( I am on a tight budget) The weights were all laying on the bottom of the case and the pendulum had come off. I reattached everything according to the directions that were surprising left in the case. Anyway the clock has been working great for about a week and is still going great. It has kept great time with very little adjustment needed to the pendulem. This clock has three differant chime settings on it and should chime on the quater hour and play a tune on the hour from my understanding but it does not. What are common problems assuming nothing is severly damaged? I ordered some oil and plan to oil the clock. I also got some books from my local library regaurding repairing grandfather clocks. I have always been a careful do it yourselfer and find it fun and interesting taking on such a project. What would you suggest I look at first? What are the most obvious problems? Are they generally simple or very complex? Also the internal workings show no sign of rust or dust build up and nothing seems to be bent or damged despite its rather scary moving. Some minor dings on the inside of the case but other then that it looks very good wit a little lemon oil and windex on the glass. If anyone has any ideas it would be very helpful. Also the weights have been double checked to be in the proper order.

I wonder if it's possible that the chain may have slipped off it's cogwheel and now is trapped in front of or behind it. As you face the clock, the chain that makes the melody should be on the right: The one that strikes the hour is on the left and the center one makes the clock run. Also it may be stuck in the midst of a cycle and need encouraged to complete. Sometimes after that it becomes reliable by itself. Often, the heaviest weight is on the left and the lightest at center altho I don't think that's your problem. Welcome to the bored and I KNOW we can help you. Welcome!

Thanks for the info. The clock does NOT have chains. THe weights are attached by a metal wire and pulley wheel. Not sure if this changes diagnosing the problem? From what I can see the wire is not tangled or hung up so I do not believe that is the problem. On the right hand side the lever has four positions. One is to turn the clock chime off the others are the differant chime melodies. The weight in the center falls as it should but the two on the left and right do not, obviously because the chimes and melody are not funtioning. What part or mechinisumm would you suggest I jiggle or give some encouragement to? Although I am complete newbie I am sure I can figure it out by looking through some of the books I have in referance to the specific part name. Also I have not attempted to oil the clock yet. Can oiling the clock slove the problem? I must say when I first got the clock runing the lever on the left did need some careful encourgement to move through the cycles. Thanks for the help

Well, "yes". Oil very certainly could get it over the hump and perhaps restore operation. Some mfrs. use a very heavy grease on the pivots that gels and turns into a goo-ey mess. If that's the case then oil SOMETIMES will get it going but will be an indication that it needs dismantled, cleaned, etc. Make doubly certain that the weight cable hasn't escaped behind or in front of the drum. It won't work that way and I'm certain you'll understand that the hour strike can't work without the melody. During or before the melody on the hour - the hour strike is "called on" to strike when melody is done. So if melody never plays - hour can never strike. What to encourage? Move the wheel back 'n forth that drives the "fly" (fan shaped thing that is a guvnor). Probly not a whole lot else you can do without removing the movement - possibly slides out on a platform or similar. Still not much to get at until dial is removed, exposing the chime and strike mechanism.

Can you move the chime selection lever up and down at all? If it won't move smoothly, don't try to force it. It may have been jammed while the clock was chiming. As Scottie says, you will have to remove the dial to see where your problem is. Harold

I am going to remove face to inspect the chime movement. In the clock repair books I have it shows the most common chime problems but I can not see anything to make an assesment. The minute hand comes off very easily with a twist of a small nut. I can see how to remove the face as well. I can not get the hour hand off and don't want to force anything or tug to hard on anything unless that is the correct way to remove it. How do you remove the hour hand safely. Does it unscrew? Do you remove it from the back? Or do you just rip it off (just kidding) I also plan on building a small stand if I have to remove the movement for testing purposes. I appreciate everyones help! Thanks

Well the hour hand is a little more tricky. You'll need a pair of CHANNELOCKS, a 1/2 - 9/16 box end wrench, a small ball peen hammer, and a pair of industrial quality gloves. First you grasp the hand with the chan - - - Naw. All seriousness aside. See, the hour hand is fitted to a tapered tube called a "cannon" for obvious reasons. Usually it can be removed by gently twisting ( rotating ) forth and back whilst ( thankya Mike ) whilst pulling upward on it. In some rare instances ( probably not yours ) you may have to insert a block between the motion wheels and the front plate to prevent damage to them in this process. The only counsel here is "caution" . Always do this carefully. To install - simply push on and while pushing - again I rotate slightly to ensure seat.

Update on the ridgeway clock. I took the whole thing apart and it seems it was just seized up from a lack of oil. A couple of the gears seemed as if they need a little encouragment to move. I used "3 in 1" oil to oil the clock after a co worker suggested it and it seemed to have worked great. After reading further through these groups it seems as maybe that wasn't the best choice. Does anyone see any long term problems with "3 and 1" oil. I must say I did oil the clock with a tooth pick to limit the amount of oil as I have read it can gum up and attract dust. Also the clock seems is if it is going out sequence every once in a while somthing will get hung up and the clock chime will be 15 minutes out of sequence or so then I have to line everything back up. It will run for a few hours and then it will get hung up again and go out of sequence. Could this be because I should have used clock oil. Or should I just aid some more oil. Thoughts and comments are appreicated.

Naw. Not at all. 3 - in 1 may not be everyone's preference but certainly it did not cause any harm. However disassembly, cleaning and re-oiling would be beneficial at this point. Now "out of sequence". Your Ridgeway has a self-correcting feature that always ensures a correct sequence and number strike. Now if you moved the minute hand - reset the time - you may have interrupted the sequence temporarily until it corrects itself. So. After setting hands to desired time, usually after the passage of one hour - not more than an hour and half - sequence should be back in sync. ALSO: An added thought. Altho the oil helped, it may not have been a total cure. For example, if because it's not fully "cured", it didn't chime at one time or another - then correction would begin every time it failed.

After removing the movement out of the clock case it seems to me that there is a small pin in the chime warning wheel that looks bent. Could this be the reason for the chime getting caught up every once in a while? I haven't pulled the movement apart and "am not afraid to do so." Should I take it apart and try to bend this pin so its straight or do I just try and order a new wheel with the pin in it. I suspect if I take it down this far I might as well clean and oil everything. I also noticed that by moving the chime selection lever the chimes started going it seems as if it may be getting caught up there as well so I made sure the chime hammer assembly had oil. Also the chime lever was not between settings nor did I move it while the chime was going. Only after I moved it did it start. Thanks for all your help and I am sure I may have a question or two more before this thing is runing 110%. Thanks again

Now that you have the movement out of the case, you can identify the maker of the movement from whatever is stamped on the back plate. That may help us to help you. Your next step will be to try to make a stand to run the movement out of the case, so you can watch what happens when it stops chiming. Something else I would do is gently rock the gears back and forth on the chime side, looking for side play, indicating worn bushings. Your movement is likely replacable for around $200.00, so that would be your worst-case senario. Harold

Update...
Well after coming close to pulling my hair out, re oiling, disassembling, and making the movement chime manually a few 100 times I think I figured it. Or at least its been chiming correctly for 8 hours. To make a long story short I got the clock chime working again but it would always get caught up on the 45-60 minute section on the chime locking plate (3rd step right before the long one that would play the number of hours). Clock movement would continue but chime would only work for the first 3 15min intervals. What seemed to be happening was the chime flirt pin was getting hung up on chime locking plate and was not being lifted high enough to clear the plate on the top of the hour. What I did was bend the pin on the chime flirt upwards ever so slightly with needle nose pliers so it was both able to clear on the 15 minute marks but also not let the chime run non stop. Is this a common problem? Was my method of bending the pin up the correct fix or do you think somthing else was causing it to get caught? Such as the lifter piece being warn. It seems to be going great but with my luck the thing will start going crazy in the middle of the night or while I am at work.

Also I broke a pin on one of the locking wheels. I fixed it with a small piece of a paper clip that I cut and fit into the wheel. It is working great now but I fear it will bend over time. I guess steel or somthing stronger with be ideal. Where can I buy these little pins??

Thanks for everyones input hopefully this baay will run great and I won't have to think about messing with again for another 3 years.

Don't argue with success. If it ain't fixed, don't break it. I wuz flabbergasted when I first got into clocks and studied repair. Here I alwys thought it was - you kno - like an exacting science ( and to some extent it is ) and then I read where you bend this, bend that, hammer this, squeeze that. However unless it's a crutch, crutch loop, hammer rod - the obvious - to me, bending is a last resort because with bending there is many times the resultant failure - breaking. Paperclip. Well I'm usually wrong but I believe most paperclips that are not plastic are made of steel, but "YES". A plethora ( Ooooh I like that ) A plethora of different sizes of brass and steel stock, spring steel stock, etc. are available thru all the major suppliers. If the pin is secure in the wheel it will work for many years. The load on it is small and will not bend.